Interview on Science in School

Finally, after a gestation longer than a year, my interview to Alessandro has finally been published on Science in School!
Here is an excerpt from it:

A star-struck teacher in Italy

Research offers exciting and challenging job opportunities, but sometimes the price to pay in terms of personal sacrifice is very high. CM interviews a young astronomer who found satisfaction in the classroom – teaching mathematics.

Astronomy has always been Alessandro Berton’s greatest passion: after his undergraduate studies at the University of Padua, Italy, he moved to the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, for his PhD. His research focused on the development of new, cutting-edge techniques to detect extrasolar planets. The quest for planets outside our solar system has been one of the most fascinating topics in astronomy for the past 15 years, and Alessandro was thrilled to be a part of it. Yet something was missing.

“During those years, I always felt the lack of social, human interaction – a lack that is typical of many research environments,” he explains. “I longed for a job where I could spend more time with other people than in front of my computer screen.” Hence, a few months after receiving his PhD, Alessandro enrolled in the Italian high-school teacher-training program, and at the same time he began to teach mathematics to his very first students.

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Read the full text on the website of Science in School.

I'm finally on my way to becoming a science & society opinion writer... or, well, whatever. yay!